Key points

  • Bitcoin traded between $81,000 and $81,943 on Kraken on Friday, both extremes in the 14:00 UTC hour, and ended the US session near $81,200, down about 0.2% on the UTC day.
  • The level that matters is still $84,250; bitcoin has not closed an hour above it since the 22:00 UTC hour on Wednesday.
  • A break under $81,000 would put Thursday’s $80,814 low and then $80,000 in play; only a move back above $84,250 would change the picture.

Thursday was the drop. Friday was the pause.

Bitcoin traded near $81,185 on Kraken at about 20:02 UTC, down 0.2% from its UTC open of $81,314. Coinbase showed $81,177, with a 24-hour range of $80,943 to $81,962.

From Thursday’s US close near $81,390, bitcoin was down about 0.3%. Ether was near $2,392, up 0.2% on the UTC day, while XRP slipped about 0.4% and Solana was flat.

What drove the session

Stocks split. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.18% to 52,241.55, the S&P 500 lost 0.43% to 7,629.92 and the Nasdaq Composite ended almost flat at 25,986.95, Reuters reported. Chip stocks rose 0.6% a day after their worst session since June, while consumer staples and financials led the declines.

Oil kept the pressure on. Brent rose to its highest in more than five months during the session after Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia, Reuters reported.

Bonds gave back a little of Thursday’s rally. The US 10-year Treasury yield rose about 4 basis points to near 4.99%, just under 5%, and the VIX edged up to about 19.7 from 19.0. Gold fell about 1.1%.

Put simply, Thursday’s flight to bonds partly reversed, and higher yields make a non-yielding asset like bitcoin a little less attractive; how bond yields affect bitcoin explains the link.

Bitcoin spent the day like a tightrope walker in a crosswind: no step forward, no fall.

The only real test came at the US cash open. The 14:00 UTC hour traded about 145 BTC on Kraken, the day’s heaviest, ran up to $81,943 and then dropped to $81,000 within the same hour. After that, the range narrowed and the price drifted lower into the close.

Crypto stocks were mixed. Coinbase shares fell about 2.7%, Strategy’s were flat and BlackRock’s IBIT lost 0.2%.

In crypto-specific news, Initia halted its chain after a minting bug let about $2.7 million out to Ethereum, according to an engineer whose post Initia reposted and on-chain analysts; it did not move the wider market.

Derivatives

Leverage crept back. Deribit’s bitcoin perpetual open interest was about $850 million near 20:02 UTC, up from about $833 million at Thursday’s close. Funding was 0.0025% per eight hours on Deribit and 0.01% on OKX for the current period, after OKX’s last settlement at 0.0069%.

Implied volatility went quiet. Deribit’s DVOL index was about 37.3 in the 20:00 UTC hour and stayed between 36.9 and 37.4 from the European morning on, down from about 38.1 at Thursday’s close.

Friday’s weekly options expired at 08:00 UTC, so the 30 October monthly now dominates the book, with about 137,000 BTC of open interest at our read. It leans to calls by almost two to one: the $95,000 call is the largest line at about 20,008 BTC, then the $100,000 call at about 11,286 BTC and the $90,000 call at about 10,712 BTC. The biggest put is the $70,000 strike, at about 4,392 BTC.

A weekend reminder: Coinbase Derivatives will be offline on Saturday 24 Oct from about 10:00 to 19:00 UTC for maintenance, Coinbase Markets said on X. Futures and perpetuals on Coinbase Financial Markets will be unavailable in that window.

The levels

The level to watch is still $84,250. Bitcoin closed every hour below it on Friday, and the gap at the close was about $3,050.

Below, $81,000 held at the US open and is the first marker, then Thursday’s $80,814 low and $80,000.

Above, Friday’s high near $81,950 is the first hurdle, then the $82,700 to $82,850 shelf from Thursday’s Asian session, then $84,250.

The alternative read: a day this tight after a 3% drop can mean sellers are tired, not that buyers are absent. Open interest rose while volatility fell, so traders are rebuilding positions without paying up for protection, and next week’s earnings from Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon, plus the Federal Reserve meeting, give the range a clear deadline.

For Thursday’s session, see Thursday’s US-close Market Read.

As of 20:02 UTC, BTC is trading near $81,200.

Related: Friday’s First Print: the yen round-trip and the bitcoin bounce

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.